Noah wins overtaking duel as Yuvraj fades

Pune: Harith Noah took a major stride towards securing championship lead when he won both Motos in the SX1 Foreign Open Class even as his challengers, CD Jinan of Ang’ata Racing and Sajith ES, fought their own battle for the second position in the Round 3 of the 19th MRF MoGrip-FMSCI National Supercross championship at Codessia in Coimbatore on Sunday.

The TVS Racing rider rode his powerful TVS RTR 300 with much confidence after having lost out on winning points in Moto 2 in the last round in Goa following a collision with his teammate Abdul Waheed Tanweer, as he snapped up full 40 points to increase his tally to 110 with three rounds and 120 points to play for.

“It was fantastic day for supercross racing as leads kept changing on the 700 metre technical track,which offered some leeway for the riders to overtake and they went for it,” said Shyam Kothari, Director of Godspeed Racing, the promoters of the championship.

There was a battle behind Noah for the second and third position between Jinan, Javed Shaikh and Sajith in both Motos as the riders were egged on by the capacity crowd that gathered to witness biking action.

Overtaking and constantly changing leads made the contests all the more interesting under the overcast conditions that prevailed in Coimbatore, but thankfully rains stayed away.

If the Class 1 saw close contests, the 250cc bikers in Class 7 SX2 fought altogether different battle that saw Prithvi Singh of Chandigarh win Moto 1 but he slipped in Moto 2 but by the time he recovered and joined the race the other contestants had opened up a huge lead. The Kawasaki rider nonetheless went for it and finished ninth to collect 6 points, which itself was a commendable effort.

In the same Class, Yash Pawar, who last season rode for TVS Racing, entered as a privateer on his Kawasaki bike and won the overall Class 7 with third place finish in Moto 1 and second in Moto 2.
Prajval beats Yuvraj

While the senior riders fought till the end, Pune’s Yuvraj Kondedeshmukh finally was beaten in the Junior SX1 class by Bengaluru boy Prajval V, who earned 37 points from two races on his KTM SX85, the same make of the bike that Yuvraj rode.